The Shepherd of Hermas

Sir, said I, I still do not at all understand about the time of deceit and luxury and torture; explain it to me more clearly.

He answered and said to me: Your foolishness is lasting, and you do not wish to purify your heart and to serve God. See to it, said he, lest the time be fulfilled, and you be found still foolish. Listen, then, said he, that you may understand it as you wish.

He who lives in luxury and deceit for a single day, and does what he likes, is clothed with great foolishness, and does not understand the deed which he is doing. For he forgets to-morrow what he did yesterday. For luxury and deceit have no memory, because of the foolishness which they have put on. But when punishment and torture cleave to a man for a single

Therefore, being tortured and punished for a whole year, he then remembers his luxury and deceit, and knows that he is suffering evil because of them. Therefore, all men who live in luxury and deceit are thus tortured, because though they have life, they have given themselves over to death.

What sort of luxuries, Sir, said I, are harmful? Every act which a man does with pleasure, said he, is luxury, for even the ill-tempered man, by giving satisfaction to his own temper, lives luxuriously. And the adulterer and drunkard and evil-speaker and liar, and the covetous and the robber, and he who does such things as these gives satisfaction to his own disease; therefore he lives in luxury from his own acts.

All these luxuries are harmful to the servants of God. Those, therefore, who are punished and tortured suffer, because of these deceits.

But there are also luxuries which bring men salvation, for many who do good luxuriate and are carried away with their own pleasure. This luxury therefore is profitable to the servants of God, and brings life to such a man. But the harmful luxuries spoken of already bring them torture and punishment. But if they continue in them and do not repent, they procure death for themselves.